


Encounter

by ErisYumi



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Haven, a lot of description
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 16:25:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17625734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErisYumi/pseuds/ErisYumi
Summary: "[...] clad in heavy armour of brilliant red, a limpid greatsword in his grip, his gaze sweeping the scene facing him, before turning back to stare upon the silhouette beside him."*A quick one-shot I felt inspired to write after replaying DAI's In Your Heart Shall Burn.





	Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> A 'standalone' one-shot, part of a larger fic which I will post at a later date. It's so short I'm tempted to call it a drabble, and it retails the events happening when Corypheus launches an assault on Haven, told from my Inquisitor's perspective. Because I have a rampant obsession with Samson, I had to make some slight modifications to the canon, just to, you know, match my obsession. It's more of a minor "tweak" than anything else, however. I may, or may not, edit this in the near future if I feel like it.

Anxiety gripped Jace in the guts. As her eyes narrowed, letting her gaze course across the mountain side, she spotted what had alerted the sentries. Distance strained on her eyesight as she attempted to observe the dark, moving figures, their silhouettes casting a distinguishable shadow upon the glittering snow in the twilight. Their shadow had primarily been what betrayed their presence, though, as she observed them, it became evident they were not intent on concealing themselves. Torches in hands, the mass made a steady progress towards Haven. She detected a crimson glow emanating from the figures, yet from the distance she could not comprehend what it was, and her thoughts stopped to ponder at it, puzzled.

Cassandra at her side, she hurried towards the gates, dashing through the encampment, a mixture of anxiety and adrenaline within her blood. The gates had been barricaded, yet something banged against them powerfully.

A boy manifested from behind the wooden doors as she gestured at the sentries to open them.

“I came to warn you!”

Behind the lean figure dressed in tattered garments laid scattered corpses of men, and… what were those things? Initially, she could not comprehend, and let her eyes course across the field, perplexed, as she stepped beside them. These men had been disfigured, transformed, grotesque, their features twisted. She caught sight of a crimson glow floating near their mouths. At once, a recent memory flashed before her eyes. In a frigid shudder, she thought: _The lyrium._ She remembered her companions in Redcliffe, in the nightmarish vision of the future they had been forced into. A similar light had danced within their eyes and floated upon their faces as she had discovered them encaged within cones of bright crimson. Yet the natural state of their bodies had been preserved, somehow, while these men’s, were not.

“Cassandra, look. Do you see?”

“They are glowing red…”

The Seeker could not have guessed its meaning, as the image had not been imprinted in her retina as it had for Jace. Herself and Dorian had been triumphant in reversing the disquieting future from passing. But she remembered.

“The Red Templars went to the Elder One. You know him? He knows you. You took his mages.”

And as he spoke, the boy stretched out his arm, pointing at the mountains. “There.”

The mass had drawn closer as they had spoken. Standing on a snow-capped outcrop on the mountain, she perceived two figures detaching themselves from the rest: one was a man clad in heavy armour of brilliant red, a limpid greatsword in his grip, his gaze sweeping the scene facing him, before turning back to stare upon the silhouette beside him.

“I know that man. But this Elder One…”

The other figure stood taller than the man at his side, his body by far the most disfigured among the group of corpses dispersed on the ground before her. Its body was akin to that of a corpse, its bones protruding from within thin, disparate layers of skin, ribcage bared in the open and decayed in colour. Its face was similarly deformed, its features drawn back harshly, and yet again, she discerned the red she had observed in Redcliff attached to its visage. The figure bore a long robe which covered the rest of its mutilated body. Another memory raced through her. Jace remembered a time she had been out of the Circle, surrounded by the ever-scrutinising eyes of the Templars, they had unexpectedly stumbled upon a minor band of darkspawns. Dispatching them had been a swift affair, once their group had retrieved their wits. She had never sighted darkspawns beyond this singular encounter, and had solely studied scriptures and representations of the blighted creatures. This one strangely resembled one of them.

“He is very angry.”

Jace turned to her advisor, but Cullen had already spun around to the assembled troops as he shouted directives, announcing the name of their enemy and warning them against him.

“Cullen, who is that man?”

“That is Samson.” A deep crease had nestled between his brows, and he waved off. “I knew him back in Kirkwall. It’s… now is not the moment. We will speak of this again.”

A deafening cacophony had increasingly risen around them as the first layer of Red Templars —so had the young boy named them— reached the town’s border with alarming speed. Further upon the snow, groups of Inquisition soldiers had joined together, a solid line forming out of their union, and met the wave with shields brandished and weapons prepared at their side as swords crashed against the outer layer of their troops. A swift glance sufficed to grasp how outnumbered the Inquisition was. They had been found unprepared for such an assault.

“Let’s go!” The sound of Cassandra shouting near her reached her amidst the urgent and heated shouts and the clash of steel against steel around them, her sword brandished ferociously. A pair of soldiers stationed near the closest ballistae beckoned to her, requesting assistance against a swarm of archers and swordsman which had managed to break their rank. Jace followed suit, seizing her staff from her back and placing it before her as she stepped forward to join the conflict.

— ✦ —

Jace scrambled up from her fall, her limbs sore and trembling from the continuous strain, her chest heaved heavily as she gasped for air, the pounding of her heart resounding against her ears, mirroring the throbbing at the back of her skull, and she wiped off a trail of moisture at her mouth. The flames’ heat licked at the nape of her neck, deadly close, engulfing all around her, its incandescence reflecting on the thick layers of snow and colouring them shades of pink and orange and red. A brief glance at herself revealed she was in a poor state, her mage armour had been battered in gore, blood staining the steel and reflecting the surrounding flames which proceeded to burn their siege equipment to a cinder. She positioned herself, resting her bodyweight on her quadriceps. She had lost sight of Cassandra and the others as the winged creature took flight above them, and no sounds of their presence reached her anymore.

She peered onward, and discerned a shadow emerging from within the smoke. Her staff had been mislaid as the conflict wore on, so, she raised up her hands before her face, steadying herself for what was to come. The same figure she had spotted on an outcrop emerged forward, and her stomach churned hideously. A thunderous disturbance shook the ground, and entire blocks of stones sprung from the earth as —her mind guessed horribly— the high dragon which had flown overhead approached from the opposite direction. She glanced back, and found its majestic black form at alarmingly close proximity to her, its maw opened in challenge. As its master, the animal stood disfigured, its form akin to that of a corpse rather than living being, its screech piercing her ears. She turned back to the entity commanding the creature, anxiety animating her limbs.

In a swift gesture, the darkspawn like creature voiced an order at the dragon positioned behind her, quelling its ferocity.

Movements within the dancing smoke caught her eyes, and Jace glimpsed another form fast approaching.

It was the one Cullen had called Samson. His armour stood as battered as hers, yet the steel caught the surrounding flames’ light, bringing forth shimmering crimson patterns. The others’ gear had not gleamed as such, and she wondered at its meaning. The evening had been filled with all too many questions accompanying the crash of this Elder One’s army and the man at his side, all left unanswered, and beyond the astounding fear which coursed through her, her mind had raced with thoughts and guesses and what theories she could conjure up. The stranger stood beside the blighted creature and turned to regard it, his features twisting into a smirk, a glitter of admiration dancing within his pupils before he let his gaze fall back to her.

Letting the disfigured sight approach her, she readied flames within her fingertips, their bursting heat adding to the one enveloping them all.


End file.
